Pony Prices

[Fudgeball123]

Any signs of pony prices coming down yet?

Sellers still seem to be advertising high starting prices but in most cases accept some haggling.

We've looked at 8 ponies now 🙄 and pricing has gone as follows (all ponies around 14hh with the exception of pony (7) who is for a different child and is 12hh):

1. £9k didn't get to the haggling stage - apparently someone paid this for it in cash!
2. £6k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it (it has been for sale for 6 months so would suggest over priced / not advertised correctly)
3. £5.5k really liked the pony, agreed £5.3k, pony failed vetting.. If anything a bit cheap for the pony..
4. £5k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it
5. £4k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it. Very reasonable price.
6. £7.5k. I felt this pony was well over priced. I got them down to £6k but then we decided the pony wasn't for us. It's now advertised at £6.5k
7. Initially £6k and agreed £3.5k. £3.5k seems fair. £6k was wildly over priced.
8. £8k. We like this pony but haven't got onto the haggling stage yet...

Just wondered how others are finding the current market? I can imagine if we wait til the autumn prices will come down but then we will have missed the summer holidays! (We're looking for 2 ponies..)

I think in the current market it is a bit of an amalgamation of issues.

1. loads of breeders gave up in the last decade as they weren’t making any money.
2. brexit has made importing quality Dutch/French/German horses difficult. Also American buyers will pay through the nose for a quality WB so if it’s only slightly more hassle to sell there and get £50k instead of £15k…
3. Irish sellers are (understandably) no longer willing to let their horses go for peanuts to the U.K. only to be sold for thousands more 10 days later.
4. Due to shocking prize money more and more racehorse owners keep their horses in France and Ireland rather than the U.K. so even the previously bargain basement TB market isn’t as cheap as it was 5/6 years ago.
5. riding school closures pushing more VERY novice riders to buy. 6)No one learns to ride properly and everyone wants a rocking horse with a pulse. No one wants anything that EVER spooks, gets excited and pops a buck, gets a bit strong in open spaces, is fresh when it’s been kept in a box on full feed in midwinter… therefore there is a real bottleneck of the real rock steady types being in demand and people can charge huge prices for them.

I do think some people are deluded, and I see so many wanted adverts for people with three figure budgets wanting something their beginner partner can ride but is sporty enough to do RC stuff, and hack down the m60 blindfolded, on the buckle ridden by a dog…
Then these people see their arse and say home should be more important than price as if everyone able to pay market value is a bad home?

I also think some sellers try their luck, I’ve seen some pretty horrible animals (serious confirmation faults etc) advertised for £7k.

I think the lack of riding schools and the generally pretty piss poor standard of riding that this has caused means that there is always insanely high demand for the hens teeth super quiet types, and I can’t see prices dropping.
A few friends of mine who compete are scaling back a bit due to diesel costs/insane BE entry fees etc, so if the sportier end of the market cools a bit we shall see.

lastqueenofscotland2 I think you have some fair points there.
Don't get me wrong. Owning any horse is a big responsibility and shouldn't be entered into lightly. I think prices were too low for a long time but now they seem very high. And some sellers seem to anticipate significant haggling?

section A mare for £2k

It was originally advertised for 4k and has gone down as nobody took it on.

It's cheap because it's green but it's actually really quiet, well backed and done loads ( beach rides, hacking, roads, water jumps, pops a small course,
loads well, etc etc) and it's perfect as a first ridden which is what we want it for really.

Now the 13h we are looking for for DD is like a bloody unicorn. Seeing five figures for ponies of no particular breeding which will only jump up to 80cm and wear a red ribbon....

Don’t know what happened to that-it should have said we have just bought a fab little section A mare!

giraffeski I've found plenty of 12.2 ponies but very little suitable for a novice around 14hh.. literally close to zilch. You're section A sounds a winner!

AWFUL.
We've been looking for a new one for over a year. We are admittedly "fussy" (we are looking for another HOYS level pony) but have a big budget and will definitely take green and young.
We had one failed vetting. Everything else we've looked at has been either been not as described at all, lame or in one case permanently scarred. We travelled a long way for that one and I was furious. Huge scar as well right down one shoulder and not disclosed at all in the ad or on the phone.
We've basically half given up for now. Totally lost my faith in people to tell the truth.

Thing with 14hh is it’s about the most desirable size. Perfect size for teenagers, M&D shares, a lot of nervous riders don’t want a big horse. However most horse breeds are going to be much bigger. Most pony breeds smaller so at that size you end up with a lot of Welsh types who can be pretty hot/opinionated and even if not the big movement isn’t great for unbalanced riders. Or Connies which can be VERY sharp.
So there isn’t loads in that size that would naturally be a novice ride and what is is wanted by every man and their dogs

Not just ponies. I’m looking for a young dressage WB. Budget up to £40k but prefer not to spend all of that. Went to a heavily advertised stud to look at 3-4. All over £27k. None of the backed ones were suitable - would need to be turned away for 6 months minimum to unlearn what they’ve been poorly taught. Absolutely lovely unbacked 3 year old we fell in love with. Took boots off and had a badly turned out front off. Not correctable. Still wanted around £30k for it 😲

Wow over a year! We're looking for something pretty basic so not travelling more than 2 hours but still it's a 5 hour outing all in..
Lots of people complain about time waster viewers but we have had some humdinger vendors. One irate woman took me to task over text before we'd even seen her horse and I had to block her. Complete nutter. Another said the night before the viewing that she'd list the saddle so we wouldn't be able to ride it at the viewing.. another one the ground was too soft so we couldn't do more than a trot (after 90 minute journey to get there)... All bonkers..

Lost not list..

would be over 10 years ago now!! (Getting old) but I had a real spate of going to see horses for sale that couldn’t be ridden…
One had impaled itself on some barbed wire in the field a few days before and had a huge gash on its side that needed stitches. Owner didn’t see the issue with just purple spraying it and cracking on…
One was just so lame in front and the novice overhorsed owner just didn’t realise
Another I got there the owner said something was up with its back and it bucked under saddle constantly but I could try if i liked?!?!! Maybe mention this on the phone!!!

Arg

Selling is just as much a nightmare with people barely off rocking horses thinking they can ride a warmblood competing at elementary, and expecting to pay £3-6k

Oh I also agree with this.. see rant further up this post.

Oh absolutely, it totally goes both ways. The horse world sadly has a lot of very unscrupulous buyers and sellers. It's hard to weed out the dishonest on both sides. When I sold my Welsh C who had been outgrown totally by my DD I was incredibly fussy and turned away so many buyers who clearly hadn't the foggiest or were planning on flogging her on for a profit asap. I sold her for less than she is worth to a gorgeous family home with a girl who absolutely adores her and I get regular updates. I was offered more money by a few people but felt they were not right for her. I was completely honest as NO horses are perfect as we all know, and consequently we all are happy.
I forgot one we went to see who didn't even have any bloody bridle to put on the pony we drove two hours to try 🙃. Luckily we had one in the boot of the car that fitted but fucking hell, at least make a moderate effort. I never expect immaculate, happy with grass stains and so on, but it's bloody rude to expect someone to travel for hours when you've lied and can't be arsed.

You could do worse than looking at Portuguese horses; even with the transport costs.

This is a selection of pure Lusitanos for sale;

www.olx.pt/d/animais/cavalos/lusitano/q-cavalos/

Cross breeds are slightly cheaper;

www.olx.pt/d/animais/cavalos/cruzado-portugues/q-cavalos/

Happy to help with getting more details and viewings (love a bit of horse shopping!).

I think we've just got to the stage where I've heard so many lies I don't trust anyone anymore! It's also gets very tedious driving for hours and when you get there it's just another disappointment where the ad and phone calls/texts don't match the horse in front of you at all. I've busted people luckily before I've even left to see horses where they have lied about show results. If you are going to lie about something so ridiculous then no way I'm trusting you not to lie about bigger things! I really hope you find something soon 🙏

SystemOverloadedNameChange totally agree in 2 months I have heard it all:

• lost saddle so can't ride it
• ground too soft, ground too hard - same pony but different viewings
• sun and wind in the pony's eyes - for real?? Luckily we hardly ever get either in the UK..
• teenager over fizzing the pony deliberately..
• 100% bombproof..

I do google people and hunt them out on facebook now before I visit them to see if they and the pony exist and whether it is ever ridden..

Everyone says buy a pony from someone you know and ask the local pony club. But the problem is if you don't have a pony, you don't join the local pony club and so you don't know anyone. We do have lots of friends out scouting for us which is really sweet. Sadly our local pony club is not that great but apparently the next one along is thriving so we hope to join that.

One seller was very sweet and said she wants the pony to go to a home with other horses and where it will go to pony club etc so that its happy and to keep in touch. The rest did not ask..

SystemOverloadedNameChange now I always ask for videos of it jumping etc. But in one case the child in the videos wasn't that of the seller but the previous seller so you have to be some kind of Miss Marple all the time..

I've just sold my 15.2 allrounder mare recently and didn't haggle at all. I wouldn't really expect a buyer to be trying to reduce the price before a vetting tbh - if the horse fails on something minor then a price discussion would probably happen at that point, if the buyer still wants to proceed.

I've not seen any indication of the market cooling, particularly for the 14-15.2hh, safe, allrounders. Everyone wants this kind of 'goldilocks' horse / pony and rightly so they are commanding a decent price that reflects the time and effort that someone has put in to get them to that point. I think that there's much more movement in price in the younger / greener ponies - but this is because you're not buying something that's ready to go.

Oh god same, I'm literally a social media and results stalker as soon as I've found one I think I might like. The stuff you learn is eye opening! When I sold I was happy to invite the potential buyers to look through my photos and page as I had nothing at all to hide...some people fib and forget they've got photo/comment evidence of lies on their pages. One connie we saw had some good results for a young one; except the results listed in the ad were actually bollocks. If you are going to lie at least lie well! I wouldn't have even cared about the results, that's the stupid thing, it's the trust. If you are going to lie about that what else is there! The one with the bad scar really wound me up, I don't get what they were hoping would happen! When pointed out they said it was a clipper mark (!), well as you could go back and see the bloody scar in photos of him being shown in hand as a 2 year old it clearly wasn't clippers. Funnily enough they didnt respond when I pointed that one out via text afterwards. I think some people bank on rich novices not knowing what to look for, but thankfully most seem clued up or at least take someone experienced with them. Having a good Google beforehand does pay off. Keep Miss Marpleing, we will get there I'm sure 🤞

Lastqueenofscotland2 · Today 09:23
Ariela
Selling is just as much a nightmare with people barely off rocking horses thinking they can ride a warmblood competing at elementary, and expecting to pay £3-6k
Oh I also agree with this.. see rant further up this post.

Is that aimed at me? If yes, don't be so bloody rude! We've now started looking in Holland (notwithstanding the difficulties of import) and the prices for very similar horses are world's apart. As someone else has mentioned re Ireland, there seems to be import of Dutch WB's and mark up the price (far in excess of the costs of import and other costs) after putting in a couple of weeks of not very convincing work.

I'm sorry if you don't like that but it's what I've seen. I've been looking for around 9 months now. I'm not pissing about (nor am I "just off rocking horse", but how would you know?)

No! My comment was about my own post about no one learning to ride properly. And either demanding a rocking horse with a pulse or thinking they are the dogs bollocks when they can’t sit to canter

And the comment about imports was also mine…

@HornungTheHelpful I don't think that any of the comments here are aimed at you or anyone in particular...we are just all describing our experiences of selling horses, which is relevant in a thread about buying and selling, and whether prices might drop.

@HornungTheHelpful Not aimed at you at all, just saying it's not brilliant either way: there are some markets oversupplied (quality horses & not very good riders) and some (ponies & competent small riders) undersupplied.